What Happened Today

The 1952 Egyptian Revolution was really a coup d'etat.  A group of leading military officers known as the Free Officers took control of the state and overthrew the King of Egypt and Sudan, Farouk, in favor of a military government led by General Mohammed Naguib. Yet it also was more than a simple coup d'etat. The new government established a constitutional monarchy represented by Farouk's 6 month old son Fuad. This limited the power of the monarchy, but eventually the monarchy would be abolished and long ranging reforms were put in place. This was all the legacy of the real leader of the Free Officer Movement, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser was a young war hero who had read on great national heroes like Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Otto von Bismarck, and Naopoleon, and who wanted to be Egypt's version of those figures. Remarkably, he did it. After taking power personally in 1954, Nasser would create socialist style reforms, promote pan-Arab nationalism, and establish a new government in his own image. He also banned opposition political parties and strengthened military rule. But he could only do it because he helped lead the Revolution of 1952.

The King David Hotel was bombed for one very simple reason: it was the headquarters of much of the British government in Mandatory Palestine. This made it a focused target for Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary seeking to remove the British from Palestine. Yet the actual act was so problematic it caused a series of problems. Even before it took place, the plan for the bombing was rejected by Haganah, a paramilitary Irgun was ostensibly working with under the banner of "The Jewish Resistance Movement." Irgun itself, and especially its leader Menachem Begin, thought it would be best to limit civilian casualties at the King David Hotel. So when they bombed the Hotel, they tried to give warnings by telephone. Largely, these were ineffective, and 91 people were killed in the explosion. In the aftermath, the British Government, the Jewish Agency, and most of the leaders in Palestine condemned the bombing. Even Irgun would try and back away from their proud boasts about the bombing. Most importantly, the King David Hotel bombing made the British crack down even harder on the Jewish Resistance, which helped bolster the cause for a Jewish state.

When the Civil War broke out, both sides believed the war would be short, as actual fighting would make the other side give up. The Union felt they were too superior in numbers and resources; the Confederacy felt they had more fighting spirit and nerve. Despite that, real battles featuring large armies took months to happen. Some three months after Fort Sumter, the Union Army under General Irvin McDowell marched from Washington, D.C. to the Confederate capital of Richmond. At a small crossroads called Mannassas Junction and along Bull Run Creek, McDowell's men were met by a Confederate force under General P.G.T. Beauregard. The entire battle was a mess. The Union had an early advantage, which seemed to resolve by midday to an easy Northern victory. Instead, led by General Thomas J. Jackson, a part of the Confederate middle held firm. When they pushed back, the Union troops went into a massive retreat. Both sides were shocked by the casualties in the battle, although it would be a small amount by later standards in the War. What Bull Run really did was make both sides prepare for a larger war.

Claus von Stauffenberg left a bomb underneath the conference table at Adolf Hitler's headquarters with the idea that not only would it kill Hitler, but also the officers around the table. The assassination attempt was part of a larger plan for a coup d'etat against the Nazis known as Operation Valkyrie. Operation Valkyrie was largely organized by high ranking military officers who were, like Hitler and the Nazis, conservatives who wanted to bring back back German power and influence after the Treaty of Versailles. Yet the events of World War II, more in military matters than the events of the Holocaust, made them go from seeing Hitler as an uneasy ally to an enemy of the state. Although many high ranking officers planned the actual large scale Operation Valkyrie, the assassination plan was all on Stauffenberg, a member of the nobility and war hero. Stauffenberg had access to Hitler and a desire to leave the bomb that might kill him. He was able to set a bomb that killed four people, but Hitler came away largely unscathed. Immediately, the plotters of Operation Valkyrie were arrested, and Stauffenberg was killed by firing squad the next morning.

The Mary Rose was the largest, most impressive ship in the English Navy when it was built early in the reign of King Henry VIII in 1510. It would go on to serve in a variety of conflicts that England fought for the next three decades, being so important that it was actually completely refitted and rebuilt in 1536. As a carrack, it was a massive ship that also was one of the first capable of firing a broadside with a series of cannons along its side, thanks to newly created gunports. By 1545, it found itself engaged in a battle in the Solent, the straits dividing the Isle of Wight from the southern coast of Hampshire, against a small French fleet. For some reason, it began tilting to its starboard side, which made water rush through the gunports and doomed the Mary Rose. Of the 400 men on board, only about 30 survived. Yet it was not really the sinking that made the Mary Rose remarkable, but its raising some four centuries later made it much more historically significant. The materials found inside the ship gave a new perspective on life in Tudor England and early modern maritime technology.

U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy held a gathering on Chappaquiddick Island, near Martha's Vineyard, as a gathering of veteran workers of his brother Robert's presidential campaign of 1968. The "Boiler Room Girls," as they were known, helped organize the communications between campaign headquarters and field offices. As Teddy Kennedy left the party, Mary Jo Kopechne, the eldest of the Boiler Room Girls, went with him in his car. Heading back to Martha's Vineyard, Kennedy approached a dark, wooden bridge. He ended up driving his car off the bridge. Kennedy got out of the car, but Kopechne would die from drowning while inside the car. For some reason, Kennedy did not report the accident, even though he returned to the location of the party. Officials found the car early the next morning, with Kopechne's body inside. Kennedy would eventually turn himself in, plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and was given a two month suspended sentence. More strikingly, what happened at Chappaquiddick would derail the Presidential ambitions that Edward Kennedy still held.

Disneyland was Walt Disney's big idea from the 1950s. This made it the next in a series of big ideas in Disney's career, from combining live action and animation to introducing full color in animation to creating the very first feature-length animated film. After World War II, Walt Disney could have rested on the success of his animated work, which included Mickey Mouse, a series of full length animated, and a host of innovative technologies. Yet he had the idea of a new kind of amusement park, where parents could have fun with their kids rather than just watch them have fun. Initially planned for Burbank, Disney's ideas outgrew his available space, and in 1954 he began construction on a former orange grove in Anaheim, Calfiornia. Disneyland's opening day was less than perfect, as twice as many people showed up and the live television broadcast hit multiple snags on a day with 100 degree heat. Disneyland still became an immediate tourist attraction. With a regular television time slot, Disneyland could show off to the nation, including with its new technologies and innovations.

The very first time a nuclear weapon was detonated was in the desert of New Mexico, right at the end of World War II. It was the culmination of the Manhattan Project, which had been going since 1942 and was specifically designed to help the United States create a nuclear weapon before any Axis powers. The leader of the Manhattan Project was General Leslie Groves, a capable military engineer. Yet he need a physicist in charge of the science, and he chose, perhaps surprisingly, the Berkeley Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was able to focus on the key objective of the Manhattan Project, while also pulling together different groups and various ideas. As summer 1945 approached, the Nazis were defeated and the war began to focus on the final invasion of Japan. With the Trinity Test, all of the work done by the Manhattan Project reached its goal. Perhaps that goal was even reached slightly early, because President Harry Truman wanted it done before he arrived at the Postdam Conference. The Trinity Test beat that goal by a day. The men working on the Manhattan Project celebrated the successful test, but Oppenheimer noted at the time a quote from the Bhagavad Gita: "I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Less than a month later, nuclear weapons were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

When Jimmy Carter addressed the nation in the middle of July 1979, he was ostensibly giving a speech on energy. He made his speech much more by reflecting deeply on the nation's mood. Carter was a surprise President, largely thrust forward on the back of Watergate and a promise of working harder on behalf of the American people. Upon being faced with an energy crisis stemming from the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Carter dug deep and sought advice from all corners. So he addressed the nation and said he realized the issue was that America was in the throes of a "Crisis of Confidence." Although Carter was being remarkably honest and empathizing with the American people, he was also striking a remarkably pessimistic tone. It was probably necessary, but it made Carter's specific plans drier and more tough to enact. Initially, Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech improved his approval numbers. Then it would get tagged as the "malaise" speech, even though he never said that word in his address. It was this kind of problem that would help eventually lead to his defeat to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Presidential Election.

In 1789, it was clear something had to change with the French government. Louis XIV's government was broke, which meant he had to call the Estates-General, essentially the parliament for France. This was the first time it had been called since 1614. Unsurprisingly, the Estates-General had many different issues to deal with and ended up trying to restrain Louis' power. When he tried to curb the Estates-General, they became the National Assembly. Yet real conflict and revolution was sparked when Louis fired the Finance Minister Jacques Necker. Believing mercenary troops would attack Paris, angry mobs formed throughout the city. First attacking Hotel des Invalides, the retired soldiers home and arsenal, the mob encountered little resistance. When they moved to the Bastille, an old fortress and prison, they began with negotiations. By the afternoon, the Bastille was stormed by the mob. This moment would lead to about 100 deaths and a sense of revolution throughout the city and the country. After the storming of the Bastille, a Revolution had actually begun.